their mercy during this long journey, but they gave me shelter in
their villages, and fed me when I was hungry, and helped me on my
way when I could make no return. You must not, however, run away
with the idea that there is any sweetness in their disposition,
any humane or benevolent instincts such as are found among the
civilized nations: far from it. I regard them now, and,
fortunately for me, I regarded them then, when, as I have said, I
was at their mercy, as beasts of prey, plus a cunning or low kind
of intelligence vastly greater than that of the brute; and, for
only morality, that respect for the rights of other members of
the same family, or tribe, without which even the rudest
communities cannot hold together. How, then, could I do this
thing, and dwell and travel freely, without receiving harm, among
tribes that have no peace with and no kindly feelings towards the
stranger, in a district where the white man is rarely or never
seen? Because I knew them so well. Without that knowledge,
always available, and an extreme facility in acquiring new
dialects, which had increased by practice until it was almost
like intuition, I should have fared badly after leaving the
Maquiritari tribe. As it was, I had two or three very narrow
escapes.

To return from this digression. I looked at last on the famous
Parahuari mountains, which, I was greatly surprised to find, were
after all nothing but hills, and not very high ones. This,
however, did not impress me. The very fact that Parahuari
possessed no imposing feature in its scenery seemed rather to
prove that it must be rich in gold: how else could its name and
the fame of its treasures be familiar to people dwelling so far
away as the Cunucumana?